FISHER WILL COACH AZTECS NEXT SEASON

Steve Fisher plans to return as Aztecs coach next season

After receiving the Adolph F. Rupp Cup in a ceremony in Houston, Fisher asked if there was something he could put it in. He was handed a cardboard box and stuffed it inside; he didn’t want to walk through the lobby of the coaches’ hotel with a glistening 2-foot trophy in his hand.

At his core, Fisher is still a math teacher from Rich East High in Park Forest, Ill., scratching numbers on a chalk board all morning, Xs and Os in the afternoon.

Earlier this season, the Aztecs played Mountain West newcomer Nevada, where the athletic director, Cary Groth, is a Rich East High alum who was taught driver’s education by “Mr. Fisher” 35 years earlier.

They exchanged pleasantries before the game. Groth shook her head and said: “He hasn’t changed one bit.”

“I’m still coaching because, even though some days are better than others, I’m really having fun with what I’m doing,” said Fisher, whose seventh-seeded Aztecs play No. 10 Oklahoma on Friday in Philadelphia, their fourth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament. “I enjoy the strategy when we sit in the office and say, ‘OK, what can we do against this team?’ And then we see if we can get it across to our kids and implement it in a fashion where it’s effective in a game. I enjoy that challenge.

“I enjoy the process and watching our kids grow, and I enjoy having them come back after they leave and still being a part of it — coming back to watch, coming back to say, ‘I need your help.’ I enjoy all that.”

On most days, SDSU women’s coach Beth Burns arrives early at Viejas Arena to watch the men’s team practice. And — her favorite part — to see a 67-year-old man step into the lane to teach the finer points of post defense to a 6-foot-9 freshman, his feet skipping, his knees churning, his arms waving, his glasses bouncing off the bridge of his nose.

“You’ve got to be passionate about doing this, or you can’t do it,” Burns said. “It’s too hard and you’re dealing with a really challenging age group. What you don’t see, you can’t even imagine. You’ve got to love the game, and you’ve got to love dealing with kids. And he does. So why not?”

Fisher put it like this: “You have to be excited when you come to practice. When you’re no longer excited, then that’s when you know it’s the time to, you know, move on. The job is too demanding and the players are too insightful, where if you’re not fully invested — two feet in the boat all the time — along with them, it will show.”

SDSU football coach Rocky Long, who turned 62 in January, was asked about the fountain of youth Fisher seems to have unearthed.

“Age is a matter of perspective,” Long said. “If you feel old, you are old. If you don’t feel old, you’re not. And he doesn’t look like he feels old to me.”

Old? Four-year starter guard Chase Tapley just came out and said it a few weeks ago.

“I don’t want to say he’s an old man, but he’s a great old man with wisdom and words,” Tapley said. “He preaches to us, giving us life nuggets with his quotes. I’m glad he found a kid from Sacramento that nobody was really recruiting. I mean, words can’t explain what he’s meant to me and what he’s done for my career.

“I’m just happy to be playing for him. I love him like he’s my father.”